Singapore
Q: Tell us your feelings about being nominated so
many times for the Emmys?

The Amazing Race
(U.S.) has an impressive
trophy trove. The series
has been nominated for
a total of 54 Primetime
Emmys (with 13 wins) so
far, making it the reality
TV series with the most
wins in Emmy history.
2012 also marks the
10th year of Emmy
nominations and the 4th
consecutive year the
show has received seven
nominations. Adrian Lim
and Kelvin Ong meet
Bertram van Munster,
the series’ co-creator
and executive producer,
in Singapore, for this
exclusive update on the
award-winning global
franchise.

A: Well, the nominations are always a tremendous
honour for us. Everybody works so hard and it’s not my
nomination, it’s everybody’s. People all over the world
associated with the show, all over Asia, Africa, South
America, Europe, Russia. Every time the show gets
nominated, I get texts from people all over the world:
“Yeah! we got nominated, we got nominated!”
So you bring all these people together from all these
different walks of life, different languages, different
countries – Siberia, South America, Asia – and they’re all
part of it. So it’s a great feeling in itself.
Q: There are so many versions of The Amazing Race
now. As EP, how much control do you have of the
various versions out there?
A: We have a lot of control because we assign the people
that are guiding these productions. For instance, here at
activeTV, a company that Michael McKay and I share – we
control the creative in Asia Pacific, in Australia, in Israel,
and some other territories where the show has been
sold. We produce the shows ourselves so we control the
casting, the creative and the finances.
Q: The show is very dependent on locations. Do you
ever find yourself in a situation where the format is
licensed to a broadcaster who for various reasons,
fail to feature as many locations as desired?
A: No, it has never happened. When I lay out the race with
CBS in America for example, I lay it out as original as I can,
and (suggest) where all the planes might fly, then I go to
the network and I say: “This is the plan. Do you like it?” And
in most cases, they do.

50 | television asia plus october 2012

Q: Since the show is very location-driven, the
associated costs will be high as well. There were
some criticisms about product placements coming in
to support budgets – what are your thoughts on that?
A: Well, somebody’s got to pay the bill at the end of the
day, and we hope that the people that want the product
placements will want to listen to us and do it as subtly as
possible.
You don’t have to rub it in somebody’s face. It’s not
necessary. But very often, people (sponsors) think: “If I
don’t see my product crystal clear, people won’t know.”
But that’s not true. People see everything. I believe that
the more subtle you are, the more powerful the message
is. One of my big sponsors in the U.S. is Ford Motor
Company. I sit down with the guys from Ford and CBS,
and we talk about how we can do this in a way so we
don’t rub it in somebody’s face because it gets
embarrassing sometimes.
There’s a learning curve in Asia on how you do product
placement. But there are other ways of doing and I think
we are little by little educating ourselves and educating
the rest of the world on how to do it.
And I’m sorry to the guys who are offended by the product
placements (laughs). Sometimes we are too!
Q: Tell us about how you clear locations when
secrecy is such an issue for this show?
A: The beautiful thing is everybody signs a Non-Disclosure
Agreement, and people stick to it because it’s almost like
a sport to stick to it. If they don’t stick to it, they’d spoil
the game. And of course you can never really enforce
these kinds of non-disclosure agreements.

profile

Q: What do you think of format copycats?
A: I’m concerned about it too, and it’s bad for business.
Too much of a good thing is… (pauses) and then you get
all kinds of gradations of quality also. People think: “Oh I
can do this.” But a show like The Amazing Race is a very
complex show, very difficult to do if you want to do it
right. I mean a lot of people can play an instrument. Some
people can play the saxophone really good and other
people can barely play it. So it’s not good. People have to
come up with their own ideas.
Q: Can you give me a clue as to the magnitude of the
production crew involved for a typical The Amazing
Race show?

Bertram van Munster

I’ve been going around my whole life as a filmmaker, not
just for The Amazing Race but for many other shows –
so I’ve a lot of great connections around the globe and
have had them for many, many years, and that of course
makes it much easier for me to produce a show like this.
When we started the show, I had done another show for
Paramount Pictures that was also around the world and
I set up an entire global infrastructure to produce a show
like The Amazing Race. So we were light years ahead of
everybody else. At this point I can call anybody in Siberia,
or in South America or Australia, Europe or inside the
Polar Circle. By now, we know everybody. We’ve been
to over a hundred countries and we’ve made a lot of
friends.
Q: Is it fair to say that the locations are suggested
with the ease of clearance in mind?
A: Yeah. But you know, my personal philosophy is that
we’re a guest in every country we go to. I’m a guest of the
culture, of the religion, and of the people. It’s a very noncontroversial relationship. You make friends that way, and
that’s how we do it.
Q: Do you work with tourism boards to promote the
culture of the country you go to?
A: Our experience is that it’s not very effective. There’s
only one country that I know that has been very effective
and that is Switzerland. They’re very good. Most tourist
boards have little or no experience (in this genre). They
give you a lot of lip service because they just don’t see
how incredibly important is what we do. They think:
“They’re coming anyway, why would we support it?”
We get support from some tourism boards though but
generally it’s not very effective.
It’s an urban show but we also showcase the cultural
side of the country but people don’t want to cooperate
with us. It’s their loss really. I think they’re just missing an
opportunity, that’s all.

A: On the one we produce out the U.S., I have between 60
and 70 production people travelling with me. Then we hire
per country around 150 people. So it becomes a pretty
large crew. By the time it’s all said and done we have over
2,000 people working on one race around the globe, and
everybody gets a cheque in their currency, so a salute to
the accountants! (laughs). It’s a big operation.
Q: Any concerns about shelf life and viewer fatigue?
The show has been running for ten years.
A: I see in Asia they’re running the show five to six times
a day. Every time I put on the TV I see The Amazing Race.
But you have to also realise not everybody has seen the
show. If you have millions and millions of people that
haven’t seen the show so yeah, you can repeat it.
Shelf life, I don’t know, I can’t see into the future. But we’re
going into season 22 now, which is something of historic
proportions – there’s no question about it. But it means
that there’s a demand for it, and the audience likes it, and
I want to thank the audience for that. I also think why the
show can go on is because it’s really original and every
episode is like a handmade show. It’s not like “ok we go
into a studio, here’s a microphone and every week we have
someone singing.” Every show is completely different from
the last. That helps in the longevity I think because it’s
always original because you never know what you’re going
to see the next week.
By no means am I knocking the other shows but in terms
of a true reality competition, it appeals to a lot of people
that can sit on the couch and not have to be the ones
eating bad food or having to go to Siberia and be in the
snow or being in Africa in unbearable heat.
Q: Upcoming versions in the Ukraine and Israel. Can
you share a little about that?
A: We’re gearing up to do a new version in Israel for
Reshet Television and we are producing six episodes for
the Asian leg of the Ukrainian version.

Q: Do you feel that the genre of reality TV is
overdone?

Q: Of the four common “types” of reality formats –
singing, dancing, food and to a certain extent dating
shows; where do you see these four types heading?

A: Look, I think there’s room for everybody. But that’s a lot
of derivative movement going on and it gets a little old I
think it’s bad for business and people better start thinking
and developing better ideas. I do think yes, it’s always easy
to buy something that has a proven track record in another
form. It’s very tricky for the buyers to buy really new
concepts that have not been proven.

A: I could see a degree of fatigue in the song and dance
department. I must say the shows are pretty good and
very entertaining. But at the end of the day, everything is
cyclical. It may all stop and one day The Amazing Race will
stop. But twenty years from now, somebody may have a
brilliant idea and says: “Why don’t we do The Amazing Race
again?” So it’s cyclical. TVAplus